Madden was aware of Maria watching him with hurt and confusion in her eyes as they made their way back to the house. How could he explain to her what had happened when he didn’t understand it himself?

His wolf self had been within seconds of mating with her. He had been on the verge of the most joyous, perfect moment of his life. And then something, some deep seated prompting had stopped him. Wolves mate for life. My worthless life? What would any woman—human or werewolf—want with that?

Was it his human voice he had heard out there as he had released her just at the point of mating? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was he had stopped just in time. For Maria’s sake. She had had a lucky escape. The pain in her eyes told him she didn’t understand that, but Madden knew it. That was what mattered.

They had pulled their clothes back on quickly and in silence. Now, he was conscious that her first experience of shifting had been spoiled. She had offered him her body and he had spurned her. It didn’t get much worse than that on a first attempt. He owed her something, even if he could never tell her all of it.

“Look, what happened back there . . .”

“You don’t have to explain.” There was a quiet dignity to the words that hit him harder than recriminations could ever have done.

“You know that wolves mate for life, right?”

“Oh.” A tiny, regretful smile tugged at her lips. “I see.”

How the hell had he just managed to make everything so much worse? I see? He’d told her quite plainly he didn’t want her for life. As she straightened her shoulders and walked slightly ahead of him, he felt like he’d lost her forever. But wasn’t that what he wanted? Didn’t he want to let her go? No. It wasn’t what he wanted. This was a fine time to realize it was the last thing he wanted. But it was what he had to do.

When they reached the door of her room, Maria turned to him with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. She was trying hard to be brave and it almost tore him in two. “Do you know what? I’m really tired after all that exercise. I should probably just get some sleep.”

“Don’t do this.” He couldn’t let her think he didn’t care, even if it meant breaking his own vow. He couldn’t allow that pain in her eyes to remain unresolved. “Let me explain . . .”

Before he could finish, his cell phone buzzed and his heart dropped like a stone. It was that time. The Cage Killer’s time. He saw his own dread reflected in Maria’s eyes and she held the bedroom door open. Stepping inside, he answered the call, knowing who it would be before he even heard those high-pitched, gloating tones.

“How’s my girl doing, Detective Madden? I hope you’re taking good care of Maria until I can come for her. Tell her I’m thinking of her.”

Madden sat on the edge of the bed. “Leave her out of this.” The words came out through tightly clenched teeth.

“Like you’ve been doing?” There was an edge to the voice now. “Fucking the witness? Is that allowed? I think your superiors might have something to say about that.”

“Say what you need to or I’m ending this call right now.”

“There is another of my little gifts on its way to you.” The cheery note was back. The killer was enjoying himself once more. “This is a feisty one. He fought harder than any of the others.”

Madden closed his eyes at the image of Hendrik in the killer’s clutches. “Is he still alive?”

The question fell into dead air. The Cage Killer had already ended the call.

Madden let his phone slip from his fingers onto the bed as his shoulders slumped. It was always the same. After talking to the killer, he could feel the effect of that concentrated evil as if it were in the same room with him, as if he had inhaled it.

Maria moved to sit next to him, wrapping her arms around him and drawing his head down to rest on her shoulder. Her presence drove some of the horror of what he had just heard away, and Madden clung to her, letting her soothe him.

When he finally raised his head, he drew her into his arms with a shudder. How had he ever thought he could walk away from her? Whatever the future held for him, she was a part of it. He just had to find a way to make that work within the screwed-up mess he called his emotions.

As he tried to find the words to explain that to Maria, a stack of drawings on the dresser caught his eye and he froze. Rising, he moved across and lifted the top picture off the pile scrutinizing it with a sense of shock.

“Did you draw this?” He held it out to Maria.

She nodded. “I wanted to see if I could use my right hand. It’s my attempt to draw the man who came into my hospital room.” She frowned at the expression on his face. “You look stunned. What is it?”

“I know this man. His name is Anton Rainer. He is the man who led us to you in the cave below the house where you were held captive.”

* * *

Madden had to make a decision. It was probably the hardest of his life. His human instincts told him to give Rainer’s description to the Alaskan Frontier Force and get them to search for him. His werewolf instincts told him to get the brotherhood on the next plane to Anchorage.

In the end, he compromised. Calling his police team together for an emergency meeting, he issued them with the latest piece of information and told them he was heading out to the Kenai Peninsula to speak to Rainer himself. It was true. He left the meeting and joined the other members of the brotherhood on the private jet Wilder had chartered.

“We have a slight problem,” Samson said before Madden could drop, exhausted, into his seat. Samson jerked his head toward the rear of the plane. Madden followed the direction of his friend’s gaze and encountered Maria’s eyes. She was seated on her own. Her expression was nervous, but determined.

“What the hell?” Madden marched purposefully toward her. “This is not happening.”

She gripped the sides of her seat as best she could with her damaged hands. It was as though she was afraid he was going to forcibly remove her. And it’s an idea. “I know my way around those caves.”

Fuck. She was right. But that didn’t make it okay for her to go back to the place where she had been tortured and terrorized. “I can’t let you do this, Maria.”

She swallowed so hard he heard the clicking sound in her throat. “Don’t you see? I have to do it. I can’t know there could be someone else trapped in that same sort of hell and do nothing to help them.”

And, as he looked into her eyes, he did see. He saw anguish and empathy. It didn’t make it right to take her with them, but what she was saying made sense. She could lead them through the rat-warren of caves beneath that house if they needed to search it again. But was there a possibility the killer was counting on her being with them? By taking her along, could Madden be taking Maria into a trap? No. The thought was fierce. Because, if she is with me, I’ll protect her. If that bastard wants to get his hands on her again, he’ll have to go through me first.

“You don’t take a step without asking me first. Understand?” He flopped into the seat next to her.

“I promise.” She exhaled slowly, her lovely smile replacing the nervous look. “What have you found out about Anton Rainer?”

“For the first time in this case, we’ve come across someone who does exist,” Madden said, buckling himself in as the plane prepared to take off. “And the story he told us when we encountered him in the Kenai Peninsula is true. Rainer’s grandfather was the eccentric artist who built the house on top of the caves where you were held. Rainer himself is an environmentalist who lives nearby.”

“So what happens next?”

“We find Rainer and talk to him.” Madden leaned back in his seat.

“Just talk to him? All of you?”

He grinned. “Sometimes people talk more when we all turn up.”

Maria could believe it. She cast a glance around the plane. Not including her, there were seven Arctic werewolves on board. They were all alphas, including Jenny. Intimidating as individuals, in a group they were stunning. Maria had never seen or felt so much raw, concentrated power. She had gotten to know them a little better over the past few days, so she knew more about their individual personalities as well as how they worked as a team. She knew that they revered the goddess Angrboda, who was known as the Mother of All Wolves. She was the one who had created the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun centuries ago in response to a violent rampage by her own son, Santin the Siberian. Maria turned her head to look at Madden. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted back. He gave the impression of being asleep, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that was the case. She wasn’t sure he ever slept properly. The Cage Killer ruined more lives than those of the victims he killed outright.

Where did Madden fit into this team? She knew his teammates teased him for being a narcissist. The pretty boy of the brotherhood. And it was true. Even in a team of striking individuals, Madden’s looks made him stand out. He took the jokes well, laughing at the comments that he couldn’t walk past a mirror. She could tell he was valued by his friends. She had overheard Sebastian saying there was no one he would rather have beside him in a tight corner than Madden. He was leading them on this mission. Even so, there was something about him that she still couldn’t fathom.

This is a man who knows my body better than I do myself. A man who has licked every inch of me. Who can have me wet and pleading with just a look, yet there are times when he feels like a stranger to me. She knew it was a deliberate tactic on Madden’s part. Those barriers were carefully erected to keep prying eyes away from something within him that he wanted to remain hidden. Even when he held her in his arms and seared her body inside and out, he held something of himself back.

That moment in the glade when they had been in wolf form and he had been about to take her as his mate had been the final proof. Maria knew Madden loved her, even if he didn’t know it himself yet. In that perfect instant, under the midnight sun, his inner wolf had wanted to claim her. At the last minute, something had intervened and pulled him back from making her his mate. She sensed it had come from within him, and she could tell that decision was killing him. She could see it every time she looked in his eyes. He wasn’t a man who was happy with the choice he had made back then. The truth was obvious to Maria, even if Madden himself was doing his best to ignore it. He was a man who was in hell.

Since they were on their way to confront a dangerous serial killer, a man who appeared to have an obsession with Maria, and one who might possibly even be an immortal werewolf hunter, this was probably not the best time to indulge in any soul-searching. It wasn’t even a good time to grab Madden by the shoulders and force him to face the truth. We are meant to be together. He could fight it, or give in to the inevitable. She hoped he’d accept it. At the same time, she hoped he’d open up to her. Spending the rest of her life trying to get over that impenetrable barrier he had placed around his heart was going to be hell. But Madden was worth it.

* * *

The flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage took just under an hour. Most of the team was qualified pilots, although they hired chartered planes with their own crews for international journeys. When they landed, Sebastian, who was flying the plane on this occasion, brought it to a halt and spoke into his radio.

“Madden, you might want to get up here. We’ve got company.”

Madden made his way to the cockpit. As soon as he got there, he saw what Sebastian meant. The private company from whom Wilder had chartered the plane was based in its own compound. Sebastian had stopped in front of a hangar and group of at least fifteen uniformed men stood on a line on the tarmac, arms folded across their chests. In the distance behind them, against the wire fence that separated this compound from the runway, Madden could see a line of vehicles.

“Are they cops?” Sebastian asked.

“No.” Madden scanned the waiting group carefully. Their expressions told him everything he needed to know. Negotiation wasn’t going to be an option. “That’s not a police uniform, and those aren’t cop cars against the perimeter fence. Anyway, if the Anchorage Police Department wanted to send someone out here to meet me, they’d have called to let me know. I’ve worked closely with them on the Cage Killer case. There’s never been any welcome committee on my previous visits. And there’s certainly no reason for them to send that many people out here.”

“So who are they?” Wilder joined them, making the small space even more cramped.

“If, as we’ve suspected for some time, we are dealing with Chastel, then it’s likely they’re his followers,” Madden said.

“Hellhounds?” Sebastian’s lip curled. “If that’s the case, they’re human. Any one of us could take all of them with our hind legs tied together.”

“Unless they have silver bullets or knives,” Madden reminded him. “Chastel knows how to hunt werewolves, remember?”

It was a sobering thought. Until recently, the brotherhood had been like all other Arctic werewolves. They had been members of that unique species who could only shift and be killed under the light of the midnight sun. Then the goddess Angrboda had given the brotherhood the ability to shift anywhere they chose, but at the same time she had increased their vulnerability. Now, if a silver bullet or dagger pierced their heart, they could be killed anywhere . . . and Jean Chastel knew it.

“I don’t see any sign of weapons.” Wilder sized up the opposition. “We can still take them.”

He was right. When all seven members of the brotherhood were together, they were a force of nature that could move mountains. Madden bit back a curse. The brotherhood was all together, but someone else was with them.

“What about Maria? I can’t expose her to this.”

Wilder glanced back at the cabin of the plane. “She will have to stay here.”

Madden took a moment to consider the situation. Wilder was right. It was the only thing he could do to protect Maria from what was about to happen. In the next few minutes, he and his friends were about to shift and tear into that group of waiting men with a ferocity that would terrify her. She might have recently discovered her inner wolf, but nothing could prepare her for the brotherhood in fighting mode. It could shake Madden to the core, and he was part of it.

The problem would be getting Maria to listen. He had learned very early in their relationship that the woman he loved had a stubborn streak. And there it was. He loved her. He had admitted it at last. And a fine fucking time to do it.

Madden made his way to the rear of the plane, trying to formulate the right words to explain what was happening. All he could think of was that he wanted to tell her what a fool he’d been. I love you. They were the only words he could think of to say to her. Maria looked up from her contemplation of the sketch she’d been drawing. She must have seen something in his eyes that startled her, because her brows drew together in a questioning frown.

“I—” Shit. He’d come so close to just blurting it out. Not now. Try for a little finesse. “I need you to wait here. There’s a situation we have to take care of.”

“What sort of situation?” Her gaze traveled past him to where Wilder and Sebastian were talking to the others. Madden turned his head to see that Samson was already shrugging out of his clothing.

“One that is going to involve some bloodshed.” She deserved the truth, but she didn’t need to hear it all. Not the gory details. His eyes pleaded for her understanding. “Stay here, Maria. Please?”

To his relief, she nodded. Swiftly, Madden stripped off his clothes. Before he joined the others, he handed Maria his cell phone. “Callie Monroe’s number is in there.”

“But you’ll be back.” She swallowed hard. “Won’t you?”

He grinned and leaned over to press a kiss onto her lips, his heart lightening at the feel of their soft warmth. “You can count on it.”